Chapter Text
“Get back here!”
Edward crashed through the brush, coming away with leaves all through his hair and scratches down his face and neck. After stumbling free, he resumed running as fast as his seven year-old legs could carry him. Not because he was actually scared of those boys… no!
Well… maybe a little.
They were almost ten years older than him, outnumbered him six to one, and extremely pissed off that he’d punched one of their number in the groin for harassing Winry. Winry had gotten away, running off likely to go find help, and Edward had taken off into the woods with the gang of town bullies in pursuit, Winry forgotten by them in their lust for revenge.
And so Edward ran, his legs burning with the effort to keep going, and not really knowing where he was going. He’d long lost track of where he was, had gone deeper into the forest than he’d ever been before. All he could do was hope to lure them even farther and then try and sneak back the way he’d come. The shouts and whoops of his pursuers close behind him caused him to only sprint harder, backtracking on temporary hold, and try not to stumble over tree roots as his lungs and legs burned with the effort of staying ahead of them.
“We’re really gonna fuck you up now, kid!”
Edward chanced a glance over his shoulder, and felt the color drain from his face as he saw one of them closing in faster than the others while waving a large rock in his fist.
The next thing he knew, he was being launched through the air as his footing gave way. And Edward cried out in alarm and some pain as he tumbled, flailing, down a ravine he hadn’t noticed lay beyond the bushes he’d just pushed past.
Edward rolled a ways before abruptly coming to stop up against a large tree trunk with a yelp at the force of the impact. His breath had been knocked from his chest, and with his head spinning a bit from being smacked a few times on his tumble down the ravine, Edward could only watch dazedly as the teenagers skidded and hopped their way down the same ravine with vicious grins.
“What should we break first on the little hero?” One of them asked tauntingly as they approached.
“That fist he punched me with sounds like a good place to start.” Said another. “Then we can go find that little girlfriend of his again.”
Edward tried desperately to get himself back up, to run again, but his body wasn’t cooperating. Darkness was closing in around him as his head pounded, as his breath became shallow. He could only lie there in a distantly-felt terror as they drew closer, and his eyes clenched shut as he wondered if he was about to die.
So when the next thing he heard were screams of terror, he struggled to open his eyes again. Maybe his father had finally come back! His father was the only person he could think of who could cause bullies to scream.
But what he saw was not his father.
However he didn’t even have room to feel disappointment and hurt, when instead a fresh terror swamped over him.
Because the six teenagers were being dragged onto the back of a large black horse by some unseen force, and despite how they struggled and flailed and beat at the horse with the sticks and rocks they’d once intended to use on Edward, the horse seemed to pay their efforts no mind. The horse merely continued to stare at Edward with dark eyes.
“Close your eyes.” The words seemed to come from the air itself, gentle but commanding, as the last teenager was seemingly tethered by an invisible force to the horse’s back.
Edward clamped his eyes shut again with a terrified whimper.
He felt, more than heard, the fall of heavy hooves against the ground, such were the screams of the teenagers. And he trembled in fear as those hooves seemed to pass right by him, unhurried but clearly deliberate in their path. He kept his eyes tightly shut when the screams increased, and also when they abruptly went silent, leaving only the sound of water lapping gently at a bank.
Yet despite the terror of what he had seen, the painful throbbing in his head only increased exponentially, and Edward felt the world around him fade into cloying blackness as the ground began to tremble with hoofbeats once more.
He never felt himself be lifted into two strong arms.
He never heard the frightened exclamations of his mother when she opened the front door in answer to a knock, only to find her eldest son lying unconscious there on the porch.
And he never saw a dark-haired man slip back towards the woods late that night, after having hid around the back of the house to wait for the doctor to pronounce him fine. Just in need of rest and medicine.
But in his dreams, he heard the sound of hoofbeats fading into the distance.
***
The teenage bullies that had been the schoolyard terror of the small town of Resembool were never seen again, nor found. And as the years went by, the limited authorities in the town stopped looking for them. While Edward had been asked about the teenagers, given he had been the last person to see them, he never said a word about what he’d actually seen happen. Who would believe him?
Edward never said a word about any of it, even to his younger brother Alphonse.
Instead, he had looked in every animal encyclopedia he could find for any reference as to just what that beast had been. Young as he was, he knew that beast hadn’t been a horse. At least, not any horse as he knew them to be. But it wasn’t until he’d given up and picked up an encyclopedia on mythical beings of legend that he found it. The entry, the drawing, jumping out at him and causing his little hands to shake so bad he hastily set the book on the floor.
That thing… it had been a kelpie.
And what little information on the bloodthirsty and powerful water spirit there was in the book only confirmed for him what he suspected had become the fate of the teenagers who’d chased him through the woods. Why he’d been spared? Edward had no idea. But he had… and he wasn’t about to tempt fate twice.
“What are you reading?”
Edward nearly toppled back, he was startled so badly by his mom’s voice.
“Sorry,” Trisha laughed, covering her mouth a bit to try and hide her grin. “I didn’t mean to scare you. What’s this?”
Edward didn’t stop her from peering down at the book that still lay on the floor, “it was the next book on the shelf, that’s all!” He defended, concerned that she’d think he was being silly by reading a book about things that shouldn’t exist.
What he didn’t expect, was for her to take a seat next to him on the floor and pick up the book while passing two fingers along the drawing of the kelpie. “When I was a bit older than you, I heard a rumor that there was one of these in Resembool. Deep in the forest.”
Edward wasn’t able to keep the shock from his expression, but his mom didn’t notice.
Trisha was still staring at the drawing. “That it’s been here probably since the town was first built. And that the kelpie is the reason Resembool has never been attacked in any of the wars, that it keeps the town safe. Centuries ago it was apparently revered as a guardian of Resembool, albeit a bloodthirsty one. But as the years went on, people began to forget about it.”
A shadow passed over Edward’s expression, and he wondered why he felt an ache inside him at the thought of that monstrous creature being forgotten.
Trisha gave a slight shrug and offered the book back to her son, “was an interesting campfire story one of the teachers told us all during an overnight school trip.”
Edward had taken the book back into his hands, and he stared down at the drawing depicting a kelpie that seemed… inadequate compared to the massive and terrifying being he’d seen. The kelpie on this page looked as innocently welcoming as a unicorn; clearly the artist had never actually witnessed one with their own two eyes. “Do you believe it’s real?”
Trisha smiled and rested her hand gently on her son’s shoulder a moment. “When I was your age, I believed everything was real. But, I will admit it’s the reason I stick to the marked paths through the forest towards the north. Even if it’s silly of me to do.”
Edward began to shut the book.
“And,” Trisha gazed softly at her son, a faint but worried smile on her lips, “because Doctor Rockbell claimed there was no way you could have gotten to us on your own in the condition you were in that night. And there was no explanation he could make as to why your head injury seemed to be gradually healing itself before our eyes.”
“Mom – ”
“You hit your head, sweetie.” Trisha smiled at him, but her expression was tight, “best leave it at that. Creatures like those don’t play by our rules, you shouldn’t remind it you’re alive. For whatever reason you are.”
Edward stared after her as she got up from the floor and left the room, cheerfully informing him that dinner would be ready soon. He sat there, heart pounding. Because her words had brought to light something he tried to avoid thinking about: why was he still alive?
So for years he stayed away from that part of the woods, and never mentioned the kelpie to a single soul.